Archives for October 2021

4 Tips for Identifying an Employer’s Work-Life Balance

October 12, 2021 by Marketing Director

Mother and daughter work side by side from home

In any career transition, it’s important to keep in mind the work-life balance that you will (or won’t) have with your potential employer. In addition to your home life, work-life balance is associated with stress levels and the quality of the relationship that you have with your boss.

While some work-life factors are self-determined and can be changed during the quest for it, many are directly influenced by workplace culture and policies.

Here are four tips to help identify the work-life balance at potential employers’ workplaces.

Before you apply

1. Find the official policies

The human resources website is a good place to start looking for official policies that will impact work-life balance. Formal benefits, like flex scheduling, personal and/or dependent sick leave (in addition to vacation time) as well as paid parental leave, all suggest that the employer places value on their employees. The extension of these policies to postdocs indicates how far this value extends.

Consider also evaluating institutional and departmental code(s) of conduct or ethics, paying special attention to their stance on workplace harassment. Boilerplate language that doesn’t provide clear definitions, processes for addressing these concerns, or protections beyond the legal minimum is not a good sign.

Whether or not you’re interested in having (or already have) children, carefully review the benefits and support for working parents; these are indicators of how well employees are supported through difficult life periods.

2. Compare employer policies and practices.

There are many websites with crowd-sourced, usually unofficial, information about employers. Glassdoor features reviews from current and previous employees, while FairyGodBoss features reviews written for women by women. Maybrooks has a family leave policy database sourced from women employees, which would complement the leave info reported on List Your Leave.

Even if all the official boxes seem to be checked, particularly large employers (e.g., universities) can have extreme workplace culture differences between smaller working units like programs and departments. This is where you get a chance to put your social media to good use. Select a few current members of the workplace (include your potential boss and some lower-ranking positions) and find their feeds. Frequent venting about coworkers and/or working on weekends and holidays isn’t a good sign. Neither is an absence of posts about their non-work lives.

It may also be helpful to figure out how many (if any) potential coworkers have stay-at-home spouses. Again, even if you aren’t interested in children, there are still day-to-day non-work responsibilities that must be managed in addition to work. A prevalence of stay-at-home spouses among potential coworkers suggests that they don’t have the time or flexibility for non-work necessities.

Consider also conducting informational interviews with current and/or former employees. Questions about day-to-day expectations, management styles, and support during the pandemic could all yield valuable information about the work-life balance at your potential employer.

During the interviews

3. Listen for keywords.

Many job candidates, particularly women, are weary of family-related questions during interviews. To get a sense of work-life balance, consider asking related questions where the respondent might volunteer such information. Before the interview, identify some keywords that would indicate a positive or negative workplace culture, and listen for them in response to your queries. An absence of positive keywords and/or an abundance of negative keywords should lead you to reconsider this employer.

4. Evaluate the physical workplace.

Actions speak louder than words; the workplace speaks louder than policies. The appearance and overall vibe of a workplace can speak volumes about workplace culture and the potential for a good work-life balance. At the end of an interview, ask for a tour; it’s a reasonable request even for remote interviews. As you browse the office, look for evidence of a life outside of work, dedicated rooms for moms who pump, and compare how busy the workplace is to the time of day. If you schedule an interview early or late in the day, evaluate how full (or empty) the office is when it begins or ends, respectively. Aseptic or sterile workspaces suggest that homelives (and thus, work-life balance) don’t have a place at work. An abundance of photos or cultural items, however, suggest that employees feel comfortable bringing their homelife to work.

When you decide

Remember, “an organization that truly cares for its team members will never penalize employees for prioritizing work-life balance.” Don’t feel guilty, apologetic, or ashamed for turning down a job offer with an employer that doesn’t seem to meet your work-life balance needs.

About the Author: Dr. Ada Hagan is a microbiologist with a passion for making science accessible. In 2019, Dr. Hagan founded Alliance SciComm & Consulting, LLC as a means to use her strong background in communications and higher education to help make scientific concepts more easily understood and make the academy more inclusive to future scientists from all backgrounds. Her writing and research have been featured by BBC Radio 4, Science Careers, The Scientist, Massive Science, and the American Society for Microbiology.

Be a Community Champion in Higher Ed

October 12, 2021 by Marketing Director

The “Get to Know a Higher Ed Professional” series features people working in various positions in higher education, to get an inside perspective of what they do and what inspires them.

Jenny Lee Berry is the Community Relations Manager at Oregon Health & Science University and former Regional Director of Greater Oregon HERC.

What has been the most enjoyable aspect of your job on a personal level?

I work a lot with our community-based partners and different community leaders to really create and forge partnerships. I often hear a lot from community leaders that have been in this work of service for decades and they often told me their challenges and concerns have remained constant. And so with my job, I find a lot of enjoyment in trying to chip away at inequities.

How do we create opportunities that promote real engagement and real partnership? Where it’s not on a consultation basis, but it’s co-creation, cooperation, and partnership. I think it’s really just redefining what partnership looks like. And how do we amplify some of the work that’s already happening? Our community leaders and organizations have been doing this work so much longer, how do we help create the right paths and opportunities to connect the dots?

In your five years at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), what have you found to be the biggest benefits to working in higher ed?

There are a lot of departments—it’s virtually a small city. We’re not a traditional college campus, we’re more of an academic health center, so we have a teaching hospital, a research area, as well as the education piece, so we have really three distinct things that we do. And I think that the diversity of positions that we have on our campus is really amazing to see. Virtually any position you can think of, we have. From entry-level to advanced career track. You can get someone that’s right out of college or even high school, or student workers. And so I would say this: the opportunities are great.

I think there are tremendous growth opportunities. I’m of that generation that you stay in one location for years on end because that’s what my parents told me was important. So for me, I don’t really look to transition to a lot of different jobs or organizations. I stay loyal, so to speak. Especially for the academic health center, there’s a wide range of opportunities and for growth. You might enter as a manager, and after a while, you get to director level and beyond. You can really grow in your career within higher education.

And for me personally, I would say what keeps me at OHSU is that the work is so important. In higher education that mission-driven piece of it is so important and that’s what keeps me here.

What advice would you have for people who are already working in higher ed but are looking for ways to move up?

I absolutely say send an introductory email if there’s a position or department that you really want to get into. Reach out to somebody within that department, learn more about that department or program to see what it would take for one to get into that department or role. Within higher education, although some areas are competitive, people are generally interested to share their career pathway and how they got to where they are. And you can learn best practices or lessons learned from their experience. So my advice is to not be afraid to reach out and learn more.

About the Author: Harold Gutmann is the director of brand and marketing strategy at Santa Clara University. He is a longtime writer and editor who is proud to work in higher education, and encourages all job seekers to consider it.

Dealing with Uncertainty in the Academic Job Market

October 5, 2021 by Marketing Director

This article is from the National Postdoctoral Network.

Many in the postdoctoral community are rightly concerned about the future of the academic job market. Prospective postdocs wonder: Will institutions be hiring postdocs? Current postdocs wonder: Will there be faculty positions open in Fall 2021? There is much uncertainty with the current job landscape for so many. And while this commentary will not diminish the reality of that uncertainty, hopefully, it will offer some facts and perspective on several of these matters.

Employment at U.S. Universities in Response to COVID-19

Recent data from The Chronicle of Higher Education indicate most (58 percent) university employment changes in response to COVID-19 have been furloughs, where the hope is to rehire staff once it is deemed possible; only 17 percent of positions have been categorized as being a “permanent layoff.” Those on renewable contracts at universities appear most at-risk at public institutions where nearly two-thirds of reported academic contract non-renewals have taken place. Unfortunately, the number of individuals on renewable contracts is large and consists of a wide range of employees from postdocs to lecturers and adjunct faculty (i.e., contingent faculty). There are concerns with how the current COVID-19-related cutbacks disproportionately affect non-tenure faculty and postdoctoral scholars who are already in more vulnerable employment positions.

Postdoc Hiring

We should first acknowledge that the modern United States research enterprise will require postdoc labor for the foreseeable future. Postdocs bring valuable skills to many academic research groups and are the main driver of efforts toward accomplishing the goals of many grant-funded projects and spearheading innovative research that leads to groundbreaking scientific discoveries.

As many postdoctoral scholars in the sciences are funded via federal research dollars from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, their job security could be considered more stable compared to other academic employees. These grants are multi-year endeavors and many postdoc office administrators have noted that even if their institution currently has a hiring freeze, that often does not apply to grant-funded postdoctoral positions.

With this in mind, prospective postdocs should seek out research groups with current federal grant funding to ensure their postdoc position will be relatively stable for the next few years. Find labs with funding via: NIH Reporter, NSF Award Search, DOE Award Search, & USDA Awards

In addition, a recent survey on postdoctoral hiring trends through the Professional Development and Career Office at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine found 35% of responding institutions have not changed their postdoc hiring practices, 62% have modified their hiring strategy for postdocs (i.e., added new processes/procedures to hire), and only 3% have stopped hiring postdocs. Therefore, on the whole, postdoctoral hiring trends appear intact, though those requiring international travel to reach their employer are subject to current visa policies and regulations, and as such may experience temporary difficulties obtaining a position in the United States.

Faculty Hiring

Many universities have issued faculty and staff hiring freezes (see crowdsourced list of current hiring practices). How will these freezes affect faculty hiring in 2020–2021? Chemjobber has predicted fewer than 100 chemistry faculty positions will be open across the United States. and Canada in fall 2020 compared to an average number of openings of 550—a drop of over 80 percent. However, there is still relatively little data to indicate the extent to which faculty hiring will be affected in fall 2020.

Most university staff assume a decrease in available funds to hire new faculty will occur, though how large of a decrease remains uncertain at the moment. It is this uncertainty, though, that has led many universities to act conservatively and pause new faculty hiring for fiscal year 2021 (beginning July 2020). If university finances are not impacted as severely as predicted this coming academic year, perhaps hiring in fiscal year 2022 might be more robust than anticipated. The future is uncertain and all available data is being analyzed to help provide clarity as to when to make strategic increases in faculty over time.

Collecting Insights From Those on the Faculty Job Market

Together with colleagues who met via Future PI Slack, I and others are working to gain a better understanding of the qualifications needed to obtain a faculty position and how competition for one may shift as a result of COVID-19. Recently, our 2018–2019 job market survey was published in eLife and a current survey running for those on the faculty job market in 2019–2020 will begin to shed light on how COVID-19 affected faculty offers this spring.

Consider Career Alternatives

Given the expectation of a challenging faculty job market over the next few years, all postdoctoral scholars should consider career alternatives to faculty. It is always advisable to have options for your career and indeed the current climate makes having a Plan B even more important.

While it is important to be realistic about job opportunities, if your Plan A is to become a professor, don’t abandon all hope. There will always be a need for good, dedicated people in faculty positions. One point that is often overlooked is that most faculty positions are not at large, research-intensive universities. Reach out to faculty working at a variety of institutions of higher education to learn more about your options and what a faculty position may look like outside an R1 university.

Budgetary Concerns and New Investments in Science

Clearly, university budgets will be affected by potential decreases in enrollments if students don’t feel comfortable returning, or are not given the opportunity to return, to campus in the fall. However, new data suggest enrollment drops may not be as severe as originally anticipated. Decreases in sales tax revenue from closed economies will also strain state funding for many institutions (see also). Federal funding currently remains intact, though, and may increase as policymakers appreciate the value of scientific discovery and innovation and how such work is crucial to solving the complex problems we face as a society in a timely and effective manner.

There are bipartisan calls for more support of the United States scientific workforce during the current COVID-19 crisis. In fact, 31 senators have signed on to this letter from Edward Markey (Democate-MA) and Thom Tillis (Republican-NC) which calls for, among other things, emergency relief to sustain research support personnel and additional funds for graduate student and postdoc fellowships for up to two years. In addition, another recent bill outlined a plan to add a technology directorate within the National Science Foundation in order to accelerate the translation of fundamental research into useful and effective processes and products for the public good (see Endless Frontier Act).

In Europe, the United Kingdom has pledged a 15 percent increase in R&D funding for the 2021 fiscal year, representing its largest year-on-year increase ever. Last year, Germany announced a three percent annual increase in science funding to continue for nearly a decade. The silver lining of the current situation could be increased investment in the research enterprise which will more than likely benefit the postdoctoral community in the long term.

Closing Thoughts

Despite the fact that the current postdoctoral and academic job market is uncertain, the world undoubtedly needs the talents and skills of postdocs in academia and in higher education more broadly; working in higher education remains a great career where one can have a tremendous positive impact on society. The anticipated new national investments in scientific funding may ultimately improve the job prospects of many for years to come.

It is well-known that higher education unlocks economic opportunities for students as well as communities. Some have called for an Academic New Deal with increased investment in and access to higher education and other advanced training needed in the 21st century. Perhaps one positive effect of the global pandemic will be that the public will appreciate and support the need for scientific research, innovation, and robust institutions of higher education that allow for us all to grow and prosper into the future.

About the Author: Chris Smith, PhD, is the postdoc program manager at North Carolina State University and a member of the National Postdoctoral Association Board of Directors.